Beacon-based location detection

Abstract

Methods and systems for determining a location of an individual in a home, business, structure, or other finite amount of space using one or more beacons.

1 . A method for detecting a location of a receiving device at a defined point in time, said method comprising:
 for each of a plurality of beacons, wherein each of the plurality of beacons is associated with a different room of a structure:
 obtaining a raw beacon signal; 
 resampling the raw beacon signal to a frequency common to all of the plurality of beacons; 
 interpolating, in missing signal time gaps below a predefined threshold, the resampled beacon signal; 
 populating the missing signal time gaps meeting or above the predefined threshold; 
 smoothing the interpolated and populated beacon signal; 
 determining, for the smoothed beacon signal, a weight within a predefined range; 
 computing and smoothing the smoothed beacon signal derivative; 
   determining, among the plurality of smoothed beacon signals, the smoothed beacon signal having the maximum weight and the maximum signal amplitude at the defined point in time; and   identifying the location of the receiving device at the defined point in time as the room associated with the determined beacon signal.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of identifying the location of the receiving device at the defined point in time further comprises:
 identifying the location of the receiving device at a defined point in time as the room associated with the determined beacon signal, if the weight of the determined beacon signal is greater or equal than a predetermined threshold and the derivative of the determined beacon signal is not zero; and   identifying the location of the receiving device at a defined point in time as the room associated with the beacon having maximum unscaled unsmoothed signal amplitude or by labelling the location as unknown, if the weight of the determined beacon signal is smaller than a predetermined threshold or the derivative of the determined beacon signal is zero.   
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising the steps of
 rescaling the smoothed beacon signal within a predefined range;   normalizing the rescaled beacon signal by dividing each beacon signal by its corresponding mean value over a predefined period of time.   
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the frequency common to all of the plurality of beacons is 1 Hz. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the missing signal time gap predefined threshold is 5 minutes. 
     
     
         6 . The method of any of  claims 1 - 5 , wherein smoothing the beacon signal comprises using a Gaussian filter with window size of 90 sec. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the predefined range for rescaling the beacon signal is from −100 to −20 dB. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the predefined period of time is the 24 hours of a day. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the weight is determined by the normalized beacon signal per time point divided by the sum of the normalized beacon signal across all day. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein smoothing the beacon signal derivative comprises using a Gaussian filter with window size of 90 sec. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1  performed at a second time point. 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein each room is associated with a social score. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , further comprising:
 assessing a social behavior metric of the person based on the social score of each room in which the user was detected over the period of time.   
     
     
         14 . A system for executing the method of  claim 1 , the system comprising:
 a plurality of beacons, in particular Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons; and   a wearable device, in particular a smartwatch;   wherein the wearable device is configured to receive one or more signals from the plurality of beacons.   
     
     
         15 . The use of the system of  claim 14  to perform in-home room tracking, in particular for patients, more particularly patients with ASD. 
     
     
         16 . (canceled)